


ABC

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Brotp, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-10-21 03:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10676430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: when u wanna write an au where jong does someth that you've always done so u google it to see if it's an actual thing and you find out that you've lowkey had ocd ur whole life  ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗaka the one where jonghyun counts things and taemin's lips are weird“Were you counting again?” Minho asks. Jonghyun stops counting the lines of the tiles he’s stepping over and lifts his eyes to meet Minho’s sheepishly.“Uh,” he says, hiking his bag more over his shoulder. “I mean, maybe.”





	ABC

Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, two hundred… or… is he on three hundred? Jonghyun pauses his counting with a frown, looking away from the clock slowly ticking away third period biology. Sixty rectangular tick marks… four lines per tick… that’s six times four, which is twenty-four, add a zero, which is two hundred and forty… so he was on two hundred, because three hundred would be impossible. Okay, well, good. Now he just needs to figure out where he was on the clock so he can continue. He looks back up and promptly realizes that he has no idea which number he stopped on. **  
**

“Shit,” he whispers under his breath. Four into two hundred is… fifty? That’s the ten on the clock, then. So he should start on the ten tick. Or, no--the one after it. He thinks. Probably. Wait. Yes. No. Yes? “Fuck.” For someone that spends all of his time counting, he fucking sucks at math. He counts himself lucky that he got all the way to two hundred without repeating a ten group three or four times like he usually does. Well… he knows that he would have ended up at two hundred and forty anyway. He’ll just continue on with the rest of the clock; the three hands, the numbers, the base. But… should he start with the one or the twelve?

“Jonghyun.”

The twelve is at the top. It feels more even to start there.

_“Dude. Jonghyun.”_

Forty-one--or, no, he’ll just… count all the rest from one and then add it to two forty. Yeah. That’ll be easier. One, two, three, four--  
  
 _“Hey!”_ A sharp smack on his arm startles him out of his thoughts. He looks up, looks around; next to him, Minho is giving him those intense eyes of his. Once he has Jonghyun’s attention, he jerks his head up towards the front of the class. Jonghyun follows his lead and feels heat rushing to his face when he realizes that the entire class is looking at him. Oh, fuck.

“Um,” he says. “Uh, sorry, what?” He gives his best apologetic smile at their teacher, who doesn’t look appeased.

“What is symbiotic evolution?” she asks. Oh.

“Oh,” Jonghyun says. “Wait,” he knows this, fuck--”It’s--it’s when like--two species help each other survive and evolve together based on shared needs? Like clownfish and anemone? Right?” That’s right, right? That’s totally right. He knows his shit. He did the homework. He got distracted halfway through by counting all of the lines of the border around the chapter quiz box, but he still finished. “Right?” he asks again, insistently.

“Right,” his teacher says. She’s smiling a small smile now, and Jonghyun chooses to believe that it’s because she’s proud of him instead of just glad that he hasn’t started slacking off during the second week of school. He sits up straight in his chair and finds his pencil to scribble down some notes or something. Now isn’t the time to get distracted by counting. No time is a good time, really, but now especially. Now is learning time.

After class, Minho nudges him in the hallway.

“Were you counting again?” he asks. Jonghyun stops counting the lines of the tiles he’s stepping over and lifts his eyes to meet Minho’s sheepishly.

“Uh,” he says, hiking his bag more over his shoulder. “I mean, maybe.” Minho tsks and shakes his head.

“That’s fucking weird, dude,” he says. “See you at lunch.” He leaves Jonghyun’s side to head towards the math wing, leaving Jonghyun to continue towards the stairs to the history classrooms, self-conscious and ashamed. He’s not weird. He’s great. He can count the lines and curves on someone’s face and hold up a conversation with them at the same time. He’s like, super fast at counting things most of the time. He knows that Spongebob has eighty lines that make up his face. It’s not weird at all.

It’s pretty fucking weird, a little voice says at the back of his head, and he pouts at the kid in front of him’s backpack as he counts its buttons. One two, three four, five six, seven eight… four holes, the ridge around the edge, the cross stitch, all adds up to twenty-four, and he counts two more buttons to equal seventy-two. He’s halfway through counting the lines of the pockets the buttons are keeping closed when they reach the top of the stairs and the kid speeds up to a class at the end of the hallway. Well, shit. Jonghyun turns and shuffles through the door of his class--twenty for the frame, thirty-two with the door, forty-four with the window, forty-seven with the peephole, sixty-seven with the hinges, ninety-one with the handle, he really wishes there was some way to even it out to a hundred--and works his way around the clusters of desks to take his seat. He still doesn’t get why they need to be in these weird groups for a white history class, but whatever. They’ll probably grow on him eventually.

He focuses on tugging out his homework and note stuff before he gets caught up in counting something else. He still counts the lines of his pencil case, but that’s more of a comfort count than anything. Forty, including the two dots he drew on it with a sharpie to even it out from thirty-eight. Just like always. He’s so focused on staying focused that he doesn’t even realize that there’s a new kid in the seat across from him until they introduce themselves.

“Uh, hey? I’m Taemin. You were in Vera’s fifth period freshman year, right?”

“What--me--? Oh--uh,” Jonghyun skillfully pretends like he didn’t drop three pencils into his lap as he looks up. The kid looks like that was their second or third try to get his attention. They also look vaguely familiar, like they were in a class that Jonghyun was in two years ago, probably on the other side of the room or something. “Uh, yeah, I was,” he says. “I’m, uh, Jonghyun.” He offers a friendly smile, since he’s obviously the closest thing Taemin has to a friend in this class right now. “Did you transfer from another class?” It’s only the second week of school; people are still moving around and trying to fix up their schedules. Maybe they got put in a wrong class or something and only just now got it fixed.

“Yeah, I was an overfill kid in this class in third period, so they booted me here to fourth and moved my math class to third and they were going to switch around my electives but then some other kids moved first so I thought I was fine but then they switched my fifth and sixth anyway and it’s been just… a mess.” Taemin shakes their head at all of the complications and Jonghyun finds himself able to relate. The first few weeks of school were pretty much the same for him last year. “I’m not a dude that is good with change,” Taemin says. Jonghyun grins at how relieved they are to finally be settled.

“A simple man, are you?” he asks, and Taemin nods.

“A simple man, trying to live his life without falling asleep in class,” he agrees, clenching his fist over his heart dramatically. Jonghyun laughs with an approving nod. He can definitely relate.

“Well, we can--” the bell to signal the start of class interrupts his sentence. He just smiles at Taemin instead, opening his notebook and clicking lead out of his pencil for some learning.

The pencil counts to fifty-six.

It’s a good thing that he’s absolutely shit at counting repeated lines (combs, binder paper, window shutters), or he’d always be counting his papers and he’d never get anything done. Their teacher starts up the presentation, so he scribbles down what’s typed out just to look like he’s paying attention. Honestly, taking notes and being talked at does jack shit to help him learn and he’s just going to read the book later. When he finishes writing the few bullet points, he puts his chin in his hand and counts the little detail lines of the powerpoint theme, then debates over whether or not he’ll have time to count the lines in the “Greek Democracy” title.

Just as he thinks that maybe he does, the teacher switches to the next slide. Oh. Hmm. Well, he was sure wrong about that. Whatever. He hates counting capital G’s anyway. They always fuck him up. This time when he finishes copying the notes he leans back in his chair. Letting his eyes wander, he counts the outlines of all of the various historical posters on the walls, then the circular lights in the ceiling, then the bookshelf in the back corner, and comes to a pause when he glances at Taemin. He’s diligently taking notes on not just the powerpoint, but also what looks like the details their teacher is adding. He has a whole professional looking system set up and everything. It’s pretty impressive next to Jonghyun’s half-assed scrawls.

Looking up from Taemin’s notebook, Jonghyun’s gaze settles absentmindedly on his face. He’s a pretty pretty dude; straight reddish brown hair (Jonghyun is sure that it was black two years ago) is only barely kept out of his face by a loose tie. Several one two, three four, five six, seven eight, nine ten, black bracelets and a rosary decorate his wrists, a cool black and white patterned shirt that Jonghyun thinks he saw at the mall last month hangs off of his lanky frame, and he looks like he’s watched a few youtube tutorials with how sharp his one, two, three, four, eyeliner is. His eyes are a dark brown and his nose is… one two, three four, five six, seven eight, nine ten, eleven twelve, thirteen… soft, round, with a slight hook at the end. His nose is cute. And his lips; one two, three… four... five? Six, seven eight. Eight?

“Wh,” Jonghyun whispers to himself, barely more than a breath of air. He counts again, in a different order than usual this time, tapping his own lips to help him keep track. Bottom lip is two, the bottom of his top lip is one, two arches, and then… three. More. Three more lines make up the center of his top lip, where his philtrum meets his cupid’s bow. It’s like a box? Jonghyun squints at him, confused. What the fuck. Those are two right angles that his lips are making. He’s never--

“Uh, dude?” Taemin’s lips move; it takes Jonghyun an embarrassingly long few seconds to realize that it’s him that Taemin is speaking to. He starts, blinking back into focus and glancing quickly around the room. Apparently the notes are over and everyone is scooting their desks around to watch some documentary up front. Everyone except him, who was trying to make sense of the weird shape of Taemin’s lips. Taemin, who is looking back at him, expectant and a little offended. Ah. Shit. Taemin caught him counting.

Or… Taemin caught him staring. He doesn’t know that Jonghyun counts. He just caught Jonghyun staring at his lips, which, while embarrassing, is much easier to explain away. He can just tell Taemin that he’s super cute.

“Oh--uh, sorry,” he says sheepishly. “It’s just--your lips count different.”

“What?”

Taemin squints at him, confused; Jonghyun just grins blankly back as his soul dies a slow, painful death. Fuck. Just. What the fuck. He should never be allowed to say anything to anyone ever.

“No, I mean,” he starts, “I mean, well, yes, I mean, just--normally people have like, one two, three, four five,” he taps his top, then bottom lip to demonstrate the lines, “or onetwothreefourfive six,” he draws the little curve of the dip in his top lip, or “six seven,” he taps twice to signify when people have more of a defined V shape, “or just four, sometimes,” he really needs to stop talking, “but yours are… six seven eight?” He draws the straight sides with his finger in the air with a confused tilt of his head. It doesn't make sense. Taemin looks confused also, but it's probably for a much different reason than Jonghyun.

"So... you're saying my lips are weird?"

Fuck.

"No, they're not--they're just--different, like, they're really pretty, or, I mean--"

"Jonghyun!"

"What?" Jonghyun snaps his head towards the front of the class as the teacher snaps Taemin's name as well. Called on twice in one hour for the same thing. And he got Taemin in trouble, too. He feels his face heating up even more than it was before. This is just great. He doesn’t even hear the teacher’s reprimand, too busy scrambling to turn his desk around to face the front for the movie.

The end of class can’t come soon enough. He knows that gathering up all of his crap and leaving in a rush is just going to make him seem even weirder to Taemin, but he does it anyway so he doesn’t have to suffer through the awkward questions now. Maybe Taemin will have forgotten about it by tomorrow, and if not, he’ll probably just keep avoiding it. Ha ha, what? Counting? What counting? He doesn’t count. That’s not a thing that he constantly does.  He’s not counting the lines and curves of the graffiti on his locker right now, and he definitely doesn’t know that there are forty-seven like usual. That would be just. Ludicrous. Ha ha.

Fuck.

“Hey, man. Wanna go get froyo or something?” Jonghyun is pulled out of his thoughts by Jinki, who crouches down next to him with his usual easy grin. He moves aside as he pulls their shared locker door open to give Jinki room to throw most of his stuff into the bottom half as usual before shifting back to switch around his own stuff. “I was thinking of giving everyone a ride, I don’t know. I’m sure I owe them all favors somehow.”

“You never owe anyone favors,” Jonghyun snorts. He’s the one always doing shit for everyone else. “Can we just... go alone?” he asks after a moment. The whole Taemin thing has made him feel even worse about his counting than usual. He doesn’t really want Minho telling him he’s weird and Kibum getting annoyed at him and everyone else in their group not even knowing why he gets so spacy sometimes. Ugh. Why did he even have to bring it up to other people? He could have just gone through life thinking that everyone else counted the same way he did because it was just a normal human thing to do, but no, he had to mention it to his friends and now two out of three make him feel bad about it. He’d much rather just chill with Jinki for a little bit. Jinki never makes him feel bad about anything except not eating healthy when he has the choice to.

"Mmm, sure," Jinki says. "I don't want to walk all the way to the tree to ask everyone else anyway." He shrugs and Jonghyun shakes his head fondly. For all of his kindness and generosity, people do tend to get left out of Jinkis driver's license privileges due to the simple fact that the parking lot and their usual lunch hangout are at opposite ends of the school. Jinki waits for Jonghyun to stand up, then kicks their locker shut and clicks the lock into place.

"C'mon," he says, holding an arm out to carry Jonghyun's books for him since he's free of stuff. Good old Jinki. Jonghyun unloads onto him gratefully, first physically, and then, after a moment of thought, verbally.

"There was a new kid in history," he sighs as they start down the hall towards the far staircase.

“Hmm?” Jinki hums, turning to him curiously. “Did they have a nice butt?” He nudges Jonghyun’s side with a grin and Jonghyun shoves him lightly back, smiling in spite of himself.

“I didn’t look,” he says. “I was looking at his lips.”

“Was he a six or a seven?”

“He was an eight.”

“What?”

_“Right?_ His cupid’s bow was like… square. So I was staring at it, because like, what the fuck, right? And he caught me staring, and I fucking--” He groans softly and rubs his hands over his face in shame. Just thinking about saying it is making him want to shrivel up. “I _told_ him that I was counting his lips,” he whines. “I just _said_ it, and he looked at me like I was a fucking freak, and I don’t even know what I said before teach yelled at us for talking, and then I half ran out of class because like, what the fuck do you say after that? And now I’m just--ugh.” He slides his hands from his face so he can pay attention as they walk down the stairs. The kid in front of them has a design shaved into their buzz cut and he grimaces, looking away before he fucks himself up trying to count that. “Do you think they’d let me switch classes if I told them I’d embarrassed myself in front of a kid?”

“You’re not switching classes,” Jinki sighs at him, taking his elbow and tugging him more to the side of the staircase. His rolled up sleeve and button count to nineteen, and Jonghyun adds one more just to even it out to twenty as he pouts at his friend. “Maybe just switch seats,” Jinki says. “But probably not. Skip class tomorrow, come back Wednesday and tell him you were loopy on cough syrup or something; half the school is sick right now anyway, right?”

“I mean, I guess,” Jonghyun shrugs. They get to the bottom of the stairs and he follows Jinki through the parking lot dejectedly, counting the divider lines in quick groups of four. Blah blah blah, seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty, “You know, sometimes your advice isn’t really the best,” he tells Jinki, skipping a few lines to look up with a snort. Skip class, lie, what the fuck. Jinki was almost class president. He shouldn’t be telling Jonghyun to do these heinous things. Twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four….

“Blame Kibum,” Jinki says as he stops Jonghyun before he walks right passed the car. “He gave me weed that one time last year and I’ve been in a downward spiral since. It’s tragic.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jonghyun laughs. He taps on the passenger side door impatiently until Jinki unlocks it for him with a wink. He’s such a little shit. Like he wasn’t already the best drinker in their class before Kibum gave him a pot brownie once and only once, and like his advice wasn’t already questionable before he started drinking. “The only people that buy your good influence act are adults.”

“And that’s a talent,” Jinki grins. Jonghyun shakes his head fondly and buckles himself in with his bag at his feet.

“True,” he concedes, and then counts the lines of the radio buttons as he looks for his station. He doesn’t exactly keep track and starts over quite a few times, but whatever. Sometimes it’s not about the final total, just the process of counting. He knows he’s never going to pay attention long enough to finish anyway; not when he stops on a station that’s playing “Starships” and turns the volume up loud enough that Jinki frowns at him and turns it back down.

The song doesn’t even finish playing all the way by the time they reach the little corner ice cream shop down the street from the school, but Jonghyun makes Jinki stay in the car and listen to it all the way through. People walking from the school won’t start showing up for another five minutes at least. Jinki acts annoyed, but only until the next chorus, and then he jams out with Jonghyun anyway. The way he’s grinning as he finally gets out of the car makes Jonghyun smile himself. He’s feeling better already. He doesn’t even feel weird when he counts the lines of the shop’s logo while they put together his order. Letters are fifty-two, the other design brings it up to seventy… something. The employee gives him his ice cream and he gets distracted.

“Thanks,” he tells them politely, grabbing a spoon along with a napkin to hold his bowl with. While Jinki waits for his ice cream, Jonghyun quickly tries to count the rest. He can feel the little twinge that he gets sometimes really pushing him this time to finish it, and he’d rather do it now than keep glancing over Jinki’s shoulder while he’s trying to talk later. Once the employee gives Jinki his order, he tugs Jonghyun to a little corner table and Jonghyun breathes easier at one hundred and seventeen.

“Was he cute, though?” Jinki asks as they sit down. Jonghyun frowns for a second, confused, before he realizes: Taemin. Oh. He snorts, trying to remember what the rest of his face looked like along with his lips.

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugs, snorting when Jinki wiggles an eyebrow at him. “I mean, he’s no Bruno Mars, but his nose was cute as fuck.”

“What is it with you and Bruno Mars?” Jinki hums around his spoon, sounding amused. Jonghyun scoffs. What an insulting question. Bruno is hot as fuck. Jonghyun can’t imagine himself having sex with anyone, really, but he doesn’t let that stop him from thinking about hot people getting it in.

“His skin is just… so nice,” he says wistfully. “So, so nice.” He stirs his mini M&Ms around his vanilla to dye the white rainbow colors with a dreamy sigh. His hair is great, too.

“You just like him because he’s shorter than you,” Jinki says.

“You can’t prove that,” Jonghyun snaps, jabbing his spoon at Jinki over the table. Jinki just cocks a knowing brow at him. Jonghyun huffs again. Rude. So what if he’s proud to have a favorite celeb that shares his traits. So what if he wants to kiss down at someone. He can’t be on the stairs or sitting on a counter in all of his imaginary makeout sessions. That’s just impractical.

They keep bickering on the subject, Jinki teasingly jabbing at Jonghyun’s preferences and Jonghyun demanding to know why Jinki hasn’t asked Luna out after two years, until they’ve finished their ice cream. From there, the ride back to the school is quick and light and they make it back just in time for the first bell to ring the end of lunch. He grabs all of his stuff from the floor of Jinki’s car and walks with him towards their shared fifth period literature. It’s poetry Monday or whatever their teacher calls it, which makes Jonghyun feel even better than before. He loves poetry. It’s just a fancier version of songwriting, and people don’t look at him weird for counting out lines.

By the time Jonghyun waves Jinki off at the door to his sixth period psychology class, he’s still internally wincing every now and again at his slip up three hours ago, but it’s easy to push to the back of his mind. He’s sure that by tomorrow he’ll be ready and prepared to come up with an excuse for Taemin. No big deal. It’s not even an issue.

“Do you count, like, everything, or just lips?”

It suddenly, aggressively, intensely, and unfortunately becomes an issue again when someone with a voice that’s too new to be entirely unfamiliar sits down in the empty desk right next to him and speaks when he’s not paying attention. He curses as he nearly jumps out of his skin, his pencil box tumbling out of his hands and clattering to the floor. Holy fucking shit. Good thing it was closed. Taemin hisses apologetically and bends down to pick it up for him, holding it out with a sheepish grin.

“Sorry,” he shrugs. Jonghyun huffs, not too pleased with that apology. Fucking scare a dude to death. He takes his pencil box anyway, hoping that it’s fall didn’t add any new scratches big enough to throw off it’s regular count, and then bites his lip. God damn it. Taemin _told_ him that they switched his fifth and sixth period electives, too. What are the fucking chances that they’d wind up in the same class? “Um,” Taemin says, and Jonghyun remembers that he asked a question. Right. Fuck.

“Uh,” he says, sharing Taemin’s articulate choice of words. What was his excuse from before? “Ha ha, what?” he asks. “Counting? What counting? I don’t, uh, count….” He’s counting Taemin’s lips again. He lied when he said that they weren’t weird earlier. They’re fucking weird, with their right angles and… being eight bullshit. He blinks and lifts his eyes back up to Taemin’s quickly. “I totally don’t,” he insists. Taemin frowns, confused, and Jonghyun really doesn’t know why he speaks sometimes. He already told Taemin that he did. Now he’s just straight up lying to his face and he looks weird _and_ like an asshole. He looks like a weird asshole.

“Um,” Taemin says. He grimaces, then sighs a short sigh and runs his hand through his hair. “Well, um. I do,” he says. “Sometimes. Like--not lips, but… letters, in words.” He shrugs, fingers playing with the strap of his bag. He tugs it into his lap to hold with a meek little smile. Jonghyun wonders if he knows just how rapidly he’s blinking right now. “I figured… we were, kind of, the same? Sort of. Or--not really--just--never mind.” He looks away quickly, turning to face the front and looking like he regrets picking the seat next to Jonghyun already. Jonghyun stares at him for a moment, surprised.

He counts too? It’s a different kind of counting than Jonghyun’s; counting the letters of each word seems tedious and impractical and he can’t see himself ever doing that. But then, he himself counts the lines _in_ letters sometimes, which is probably even more tedious and impractical and a bigger waste of time, to be honest. Taemin can’t do it all the time, right? Otherwise he’d never get anything done at school. Maybe he can suppress the urge during class like Jonghyun can if he really tries, or maybe it’s so second nature to him that it just happens at the back of his mind, without him realizing it. Maybe--maybe Jonghyun should say something to him instead of just staring at him like a fucking creep.

“I count--” he starts, and then falters when Taemin looks at him shyly. What does he count? “Just… not everything, but… lots of specific things,” he says. “Like… facial features, and windows, and shelves… streetlamps... cartoon character outlines… ceiling fans… clothes outlines…..” He really does count a lot of just… shit. Anything that doesn’t have too many weird lines or details. And even then, sometimes he counts those and just simplifies them in his mind. He doesn’t even know what compels him to count certain things and not glance twice at others, but whatever it is has some pretty fucked up priorities. He shrugs at Taemin, twirling a pencil in his hand nervously. He’s never really went into specifics like this before.

“I… oh,” Taemin says. “I’m like… letters in words, and words on pages, and… numbers in numbers, like… you know?” He winces as he says it, like he knows that it doesn’t make sense. Jonghyun thinks for a moment; he means like… where Jonghyun would count the outlines of “2000” as twelve, Taemin would just… count four numbers. He gets it.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, “cool.”

“Cool,” Taemin parrots, smiling weakly. Jonghyun grins back, and then, after a few moments, they both deflate into breathy little laughs. Jonghyun doesn’t know if they're of relief or because they get each other or because this whole conversation was just a big mess, but the way Taemin runs his fingers through his hair and shakes his head makes him think that maybe Taemin is still in the same boat as him. They’ll figure it out eventually, probably, maybe with an actual phone number this time.


End file.
